I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows • Hacker News Board

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#31

Post by cryo32 » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

cf100clunk wrote: post #8

cryo32 wrote: post #4

Yeah same but I'm out of options. I don't like Linux on the desktop but I like Windows' privacy stance and use-hostile behaviour less. My Mac isn't much better. What I really hate is being forced into this corner. Instead of dealing with this I have taken to doing activities where I don't need to use the computer now. So for example photography is a major hobby for me. I went back to film just to get away from the bl…

> I don't like Linux on the desktop The massively wide variety of desktop options makes your opinion difficult to assess. Which have you tried?

Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, Cosmic, i3, Enlightenment.

Been trying for 30 years.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#32

Post by BLKNSLVR » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

Even if Windows didn't have those weird things, there are a bunch of intended behavior things that make Windows a more frustrating experience than the occasional weird things a Linux system may do.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#33

Post by arvid-lind » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

I'm glad it wasn't just me... the nice thing about those mysterious issues on Linux is usually you can actually fix the issue. With Windows I needed a hacky solution just to move the stupid taskbar, or wait for Microsoft to fix it.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#34

Post by thewebguyd » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

> For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence.

Funnily enough, I have that exact issue but the opposite. It takes nearly as long to shut down. Which I do often because still, in 2026, even on the Snapdragon surface laptop, I can't trust Windows to actually sleep when I close the laptop lid.

I've had less issues with Linux, even sleep, than any modern windows box, and even less issues (pretty much none at all) on my daily driver MacBook Pro (plenty of annoyances and quirks here too though)

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#35

Post by happytoexplain » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

>The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me.

That's not what the author said. And anecdotes are perfectly fine - in fact, they are literally are all we have to write about.

In this case, everything I've experienced and heard from others suggests that the author is correct. Linux distros are amazing, and their issues are generally fixable with experience, but the problem is that their issues are usage-blocking. Windows issues are much more common, but they are just fucking annoying. They are either solvable without a comp sci degree, or (and this is the important part) simply ignorable while still being able to use the computer (albeit with varying degrees of misery).

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#36

Post by fabian2k » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

I switched to Linux again because on this PC Windows suddenly just doesn't run stable anymore. Even a complete reinstall didn't fix it, I assume it is some driver issue or something like that.

It took me a while to convince myself it wasn't a hardware defect. I had very frequent single tab crashes in any browser I used. And regular bluescreens, sometimes multiple a day. But it runs entirely stable on a parallel Ubuntu installation with the same hardware.

If you're unlucky, you can run into weird issues that are hard to impossible to fix as a regular user.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#37

Post by martinald » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

Two thoughts (I was in the same situation, constantly trying desktop Linux then pinging back to Windows after hitting issues).

1) Fedora is really worth a try, it's extremely polished. The best thing is the packages in the repo are generally much more up to date that debian based distros, which maeans less random PPAs to work around it, which cause issues.

2) The biggest change is having Claude Code/Codex able to diagnose and tweak things extremely quickly. If something goes wrong, I ask claude code (in a specific folder with various docs about workarounds) and it goes and fixes it 99% of the time very quickly.

Coding agents being able to fix Linux actually makes it _more_ stable than Windows for me. In my experience Windows is less buggy _in general_ than desktop Linux.[1] However, once you hit random issues you are basically screwed if basic attempts don't work. With Linux you can have a coding agent go thru all the reams of logs to find the issue and even clone the underlying source code to find issues.

[1] For example, there is some ridiculous problem with wayland and notifications on GNOME at least, see this: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/work_items/358?... which has to be disabled with an extension unless you want to go insane

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#38

Post by nate » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

This brings back all this nostalgia. I used to be all linux everywhere I could. The CD linux loaders on random machines work would make me use with work. Linux distros you'd get in a book from Borders. :) Loved it all. But then I had to edit video and images in a 24 hour film festival. And the pain. It just couldn't work constitently. Had to find someone with a mac to get it done. I know these days are so different with better image and video editors and many years of improvements. But still kind of shy from adopting linux again as a daily driver. Too stuck on Apple and OSX now

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#39

Post by notsylver » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

I really want to use linux but for me its the software. Games I play use anticheat that doesn't work. Software I use for 3d printing doesn't work without hours of workarounds. VR is poorly supported if at all. Usually every year I'll try linux, use it for a month or so, then be forced back to windows after running into a hard block, with the dozen ads forced down my throat welcoming me back. Hopefully one day I can commit to it.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#40

Post by unethical_ban » Fri, May 15, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

carra wrote: post #13

I always see the same when someone says things like this in any article, video or comment. There will be like 20 replies saying that it's because they chose the wrong linux distro. And of course each of those 20 will recommend a different one! Sometimes distros that I had never even heard about before...

The article is a bit hand-wavey. I won't deny their issue, they had it, but of course people here will have their opinion about the tradeoffs. For me CachyOS working near flawlessly on multiple machines. It's truly free with no forced ads or telemetry or product integrations.

If Windows works for a person or they need it for certain software that's fine. For me, I'm living a Linux-default life for the first time and it's nice.